


Hospitality

by bakercrown



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Best Friends, Fluff and Angst, Food, Friendship, Gen, Hogwarts, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Queenie Goldstein/Jacob Kowalski, Minor Tina Goldstein/Newt Scamander, Not Beta Read, Pastries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-18 14:12:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19336147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bakercrown/pseuds/bakercrown
Summary: Jacob barely feels like he can breathe after the rally, so Newt takes him somewhere he will feel at home.





	Hospitality

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "Hospitable" on the Hogwash: Newtina Nerds! discord server. It is about time I wrote some good Newt + Jacob BROTP. Enjoy the fluff + angst combo.

Jacob barely finished talking plans with Tina to rescue Queenie, when he felt a tap on the shoulder. Jacob turned, and behold, Newt flanked him, expression eager despite the grief they faced. Jacob saw a Pickett-shaped lump in Newt’s breast pocket.

“Want to walk with me?” Newt said, grinning. “Surely my best friend would like to see where I went to school?” There was a mischievous tone in his voice. Jacob turned to Tina. Would she be okay while he was gone? He trusted her to be all right while he got away from this nightmare, just for a few minutes.

“Thanks again for saving my life, Miss Intense.”

She gave him a pained smile. “Anytime, Mr. No-maj. Anyway, Queenie would kill me if—if…” She tried to swallow and it took several times, “something happened to you. Besides, we’re friend.” There was a hesistence. “I mean, I hope. Considering I wasn’t there when I shouldn’t have been, maybe--”

Jacob put his hands on Tina’s shoulders. He took a deep breath, and gestured to her, as though to suggest she should mimic him.

“Don’t worry I’ll be here to drive you nuts for a very long time, Tina.”

She gave him a playful swat on the arm as her face broke into an expression of relief that he did not blame her for everything that had happened since he had left New York. “Don’t make me regret saving you!”

Jacob laughed and turned to follow Newt.

“I never knew the two of you were so friendly,” Newt said as they walked from the entrance hall towards a passage to the right that seemed to head downward. Jacob didn’t ask their destination. He didn't much care. Yet, as depressed as he was, it he still found his eyes darting to the moving portraits that whispered among themselves, following a ghost with his eyes as it trailed down the hall, and staring when Newt tapped a statue with his wand to get it to move out the way so he and Jacob could take a shortcut. Newt never demanded an answer, as they walked, nor tried to change the subject. Jacob guessed Newt figured he would answer whenever he was ready. It had been a rough day of all of them, after all. Newt would be right to suggest talking about New York being painful.

“We got used to seeing each other, when I arrived to pick up Queenie before dates,” Jacob said, saying Queenie’s name as though swallowing a lemon or ripping off a bandage. “She reminds me of the commanding officers I had in the army. Tough, but because she wants the best for you, _from_ you. We’d all be lost without Tina.” He nudged Newt’s arm. “But some of us more than others, huh?”

They stopped at a painting of a bowl of fruit. Newt’s ears turned red.

“Definitely!” His voice was eager, without hesitation. Had Jacob missed something when he’d left Newt to chase after Queenie?

 _Queenie_. Did she miss him as much as he missed her? Did she think he hated her? Did her heart ache for him right now as much as his did for her? She’d only went to Grindelwald because he’d been the only one to offer her a solution, maybe the only person who she’d felt validated by, supported by, for a long time. Jacob had dismissed how badly she had been hurting, how much she had hatred hiding from MACUSA.

Any plan she had come up with to get them out of the situation, he had dismissed. Now, some of her ideas, like the enchantment, had been wrong, but maybe some of the ones that had merely _risky_ , but not morally dubious, he should have considered.

But he hadn’t. He’d just wanted to protect her. If only he’d paid closer attention…

Now he paid the price.

He wanted to suppress the pain, but it felt too big to move to the back of his mind, like a skyscraper towering above him.

Jacob stood up a bit straighter. He and Tina were starting on a plan to get Queenie back, so dwelling on sadness was pointless. So he turned to Newt and forced a smile. “So, why are we standing in front of a portrait? Am I missing something, or is this a joke you play on the new guy? Or can I not see it because I’m not a wizard?”

“Oh, Helga Huffelpuff--that’s the founder of our house--She wouldn’t care if you were a wizard or not. You’ll be able to see anything in this part of the castle. Just-um-avoid the lower dungeons.” He shuddered, looked away apologetically and shrugged. Jacob, however, was confused.

“Our house? I ain’t been here before--”

Newt laughed. “You’re the most loyal person I’ve met Jacob. If you’re not a Hufflepuff, I don’t know who is. Loyalty, patience, hard work, fairness, those are the values of Hufflepuff House. If those aren’t you--”

“That ain’t me,” Jacob said his shoulders slumping. His eye stung, which he ignored. “If I’d been loyal and patient, I wouldn’t have lost my temper with Queen--”

“We all have moments where we snap,” Newt said. “You went all the way to Paris--after she’d deeply hurt you. Loyalty to those you love, even if they don’t totally deserve it-- If that’s not the makings of a true Hufflepuff, I don’t know what is.” Newt reached up and tickled the pair.

“Hey!” Jacob said, too distracted by what Newt had said to notice the portrait swinging open just yet, staring at Newt as though he had insulted his grandmother. “Queenie just feels stifled and unvalidated right now! She’s a good person—Don’t say she doesn’t deserve my love or forgiveness—”

Newt smirked. “See what I mean? My plan worked. Loyal to a fault. You’re a Hufflepuff.” Newt stepped into the portrait hole and gave Jacob a leg up. “Now close your eyes.”

Jacob obeyed. Newt grabbed his hand and lead him through the passage. To whatever he felt Jacob needed to see.

“Now, what do you hear?” Newt asked.

Jacob knew those sounds and instantly felt comforted. Not just because he was in a kitchen, but that helped. Newt knew him, knew what would make him feel better, what might bring the only genuine smile he might have on his face for weeks, going forward.

“A fire, the banging of pots and pans, a hot water kettle going off—We’re in someone’s kitchens, Newt.” A big grin crossed over Jacob’s face.

“The Hogwarts kitchens,” Newt said specifically as Jacob opened his eyes. House-elves rushed about the place, preparing turkeys, lambs, steaks, potatoes, pastas, puddings, ice cream, cakes.

 _Do_ not _let you mouth water._

Too late. He wiped at his mouth.

“This is amazing,” Jacob said.

“Thank you, sir!” A squeaky voice answered. “May I help you, sir and Mister Newt?”

Jacob glanced down… Far down and saw a house elf staring up at him, its eyes bigger than the dinner rolls Jacob sold at his bakery. Bigger than two dinner rolls! Between that and drooling over the dinner that cooked, he _had_ to be starving.

Grief had a way of making a person hungry, although maybe it was partly just being in a kitchen this big. Still, he hadn’t felt this hungry since his grandma had died.

“We’ll have two cups of coffee!” Newt frowned. “Merlin’s bread! It’s strange, Jacob, I feel like I’ve known you for years and yet we’re still getting to know basic things about each other! How do you take your coffee?”

“Cream and sugar.”

“Excellent!” Newt said. “We’ll have a coffee with cream and sugar, one black—“ Jacob’s eyes grew as big as saucers as he mouthed ‘you drink it _black_?” He was sure the look on his face suggested Newt was some kind of heathen, but he didn’t care. Who took coffee that _bitter_? Newt laughed.

“Also,” New continued, “two pain au chocolats—those were the pastries you wanted in Paris, right?” He turned away from Jacob, back to the elf, “and if you can manage it some wood lice for Pickett, if you can. If not, maybe some cereal for him?”

The house-elf beamed and took off. Pickett poked his head out of Newt’s breast pocket and sniffed the air hopefully.

Jacob stared, watched the house elves at work. _Don’t think about how Queenie would love it here, don’t think about it_.

Yet here he was, thinking about the gasps of delight she let out, how she would rush over on the scarlet heels he had last seen her wearing to the elves and ask to try some of their recipes. He might so that, ask about Hogwarts’ recipes, if he didn’t have a Queenie-shaped hole in his heart.

Newt cleared his throat. He appeared to be thinking about saying something, judging by the way his forehead wrinkled as he looked at Jacob, but he said nothing. He gave Jacob a pained smiled. Newt turned to Pickett, examining him for injuries from the rally, and left Jacob to his thoughts.

Within five minutes, their food at arrived. Two coffees, labeled by preference, a whole tray of the pastries they had asked for (“Professor Dumbledore is warning us you might be extra hungry before you arrived, sirs!”), a small bowl of cereal for Pickett, and enough napkins to last them for several days.

“If it were summer, I would take you to the Hufflepuff common room to eat those, but school is back in session, we’ll have more privacy here, although I could show you the common room when we’re done here... Hopefully it wouldn’t disturb the N.E.W.T students.”

“The—uh—NEWT students?” Jacob couldn’t help the small giggle that escaped. It felt like betraying Newt but it was _funny_!

Newt rolled his eyes. “Yes, everyone makes a joke about it, even Theseus! Get it out of your system.”

They both sat down in front of the roaring fire. Silence draped over them like a blanket as they ate their pastries and sipped their warm coffee in silence, and for at least five minutes, no one spoke. The only sounds were the two men and Pickett eating, the cackling fire that warmed their bodies but not their aching hearts, and of course the clanging of pots and pans.

Jacob tried to enjoy his pastry, but it had that tasteless quality that food often did when one was unhappy. Finally, Newt spoke up.

“I just realize I—um—I feel like I’ve been an awful friend, when I think back at this past day or so,” Newt said. He stared at the fire, Jacob thought he had a guilty expression on his face, similar to the ones little kids had at his bakery after they stole cookies.

Jacob titled his head at Newt, confused. “What do you mean, pal? You talked Queenie out of her fear of waking me up and when she left—“ _The first time she left_. What horrible words he now had to say, _when she felt the first time_. What a failure of a lover he was! “Well, you helped me hunt her down. What do you have to feel bad about?”

“Are you even capable of holding a grudge?” Newt laughed. He watched Pickett digging into his cereal, and then took a large bite of his pain au chocolat. Finally, he seemed to decide to speak when he couldn’t put it off anymore. “I just—I feel like I handled everything wrong. I don’t know how to talk to people—if I had maybe found a way to talk to Queenie about what was going on before waking you up—but I don’t know how to handle problems like that—if I had listened when you wanted to talk about Queenie—if I had asked you how the two of you were doing—“ He glared at his pastry as though the elves had burned it. Then he began to trace a circle on his top jacket button with his finger.

“I’m surprised you don’t think I’m a horrible friend. I’m no good at those things, and I don’t even know—would it have been polite to have asked you what happened between you? Then there’s how fixated I’ve been on Tina, instead of helping you with your problems! You must think me a selfish arse!”

Jacob shrugged. “Nope, just a man madly in love.” Jacob lowered his pastry, which he had munched on while he listened to Newt talk. “Newt, I know how you feel about Tina—it’s how I feel about Queenie. You don’t have to apologize.”

“I _want_ to.” Newt frowned at him. “So— _can_ I ask what has been happening between you two? I feel like I missed quite a lot.”

Jacob let out a long sigh. “We started seeing each other again back in March. Things went well until about the summer and—well—Queenie started to get depressed. I thinking—watching people get married, when we couldn’t, hiding from MACUSA, it all took a toll on her, buddy—Well. Anyway, she wanted to move to England—I couldn’t because I still had my loan—“

“Seriously? You mean that was only enough for the collateral? If I’d known that would be a problem, I would have just given you the whole nest of eggs!”

They both laughed, before Jacob continued his story. “If I defaulted it, we’d have been in trouble with the no-maj authorities if they’d followed us to England and that was no way to start a life. So, then she started going on about us getting married in spite of the law—and I couldn’t have that. I refused to risk her going to prison because of me. You know how it is, if it were Tina…”

From the look on Newt’s face, he _did_ understand.

“After that, well, you saw what happened,” Jacob shrugged. “I guess she thought if we married in England, MACUSA would have to recognize the marriage. I dunno if they would, though, knowing them… Now she thinks Grindelwald is gonna solve our problems. Ha! I heard all that he said at the rally—different but not lesser. I _know_ she would see through that if she were thinking rationally!” He flung his pastry back onto the plate, with a bit too much force. “But that’s the thing, Newt, she ain’t thinking clearly right now. All she can she is how miserable she’s been having to hide the relationship—and of course he’s strutted in saying we’ll be able to live freely—openly—”

He couldn’t go on. He buried his head in his hands. After a moment, he felt a hesistant, tense hand on his shoulder. Newt. It was only for there a second, before it dipped down and offered Jacob his pastry again. Jacob took it. It was comforting, but not enough to make him forget his mistakes. The chocolate did not offer the kick it should. In fact, it almost tasted like nothing, like water did. Jacob choked it down.

“What a mess. I’m sorry.” The look on his face was genuine, Newt looking as if he wished he could Vanish Jacob’s pain. But magic couldn’t heal all wounds, and that was truest for matters of the heart. “What you said back at my house, Jacob, it still stands. We’ll save Queenie and the four of us will be happy again.”

It wasn’t a statement. It was a vow.

Jacob gave him a small smile. Time to give Newt a hard time. Just a smidge. “Really, Mr. I’m-an-ass? Maybe you’re just helping Tina and me because you know the two of _us_ will never be happy until we save her!”

Newt caught on to his teasing tone, as it was Jacob, and chuckled with him.

“I happen to care about Queenie, too! Who else will I have debates about Hogwarts vs. Ilvermorny with, if—“ New’s face darkened and Jacob was glad that he hadn’t finished that sentence. “Anyway,” Newt ploughed on quickly, “the point is, you and Tina aren’t friendly rivalry material. We will get her back, as I said. Credence too.”

For the first time, hearing Newt say it, Jacob thought so too. He took another bite of his pastry and suddenly it tasted much better.

 

 

 


End file.
